


Why Don't You Run from Me

by BlessedAreTheFandoms



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Anal Sex, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exhaustion, First Kiss, First Time, Inspired by Music, Internment Camp 371 (Star Trek), Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Season/Series 05, Suicidal Thoughts, Touch-Starved, also figurative sleeping together, disordered eating due to stress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:33:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 19,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25674379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlessedAreTheFandoms/pseuds/BlessedAreTheFandoms
Summary: Julian Bashir returns from the Dominion camp 371 but can't find his place.  Not knowing how to belong, he begins to self-destruct.  He turns to Elim Garak for help but Garak knows he is no one's savior and isn't sure why Bashir does not understand that.Perhaps, though, they can teach each other what it means to come back home.(I've rearranged this so all explicit material is crowded into the last chapter; you don't have to read it to finish the story, if smut isn't your thing.  Without chapter ten, this is probably an M rating.)
Relationships: Julian Bashir/Elim Garak
Comments: 208
Kudos: 209





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been thinking about writing something about touch-starvation for a while because I worry for my friends with more physical love languages during this pandemic, and I think Julian would be like that. Then, for whatever reason, listening to Billie Eilish's [Bury a Friend](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XuD8fcOuYQ) kicked off an entire examination of how messed up Julian would be after 371. I still don't fully understand this story or what it became, so I hope it makes some kind of sense to you.
> 
> The whole thing is set in between "By Inferno's Light" and "Dr. Bashir, I Presume."

It was overwhelming to be able to see the stars again.

After five years on the space station Deep Space Nine, the starscape slowly spinning past Julian Bashir’s viewport should have been so familiar as to be almost invisible—and it had been, before.

Before.

Julian took a deep breath and wrapped his arms around his thin torso, his pajamas suddenly seeming foolish and flimsy in the starlight as he leaned into the port’s sill. Everything seemed foolish and flimsy now, jagged and broken in the reality of his return. More than a month in internment camp 371 had knocked everything he thought he knew off balance.

He grinned to himself in the dark, a humorless sneer, at the idea that he’d been on-balance before. So on-balance, in fact, that no one had noticed he’d been replaced; so on-balance that a hostile alien had perfectly replicated him. Improved on the model, even; everyone said the Changeling had been more personable.

 _Because you’re not really a person_ , whispered the back corners of his mind, and he shrugged. He should go to sleep; he was a doctor, he knew the effects of insomnia. Knew why he spent most of his nights looking out the viewport, drinking in the sight of the stars from which no one was coming to drag him away, to close him in a room with no light, no one else, nothing but stone upon stone to drag under his skin—

Julian stood abruptly, absently rubbing a shoulder. The hyposprays to be able to sleep were becoming a pattern. His physician’s mind worried at the possibility of dependence, at the underlying causes that couldn’t be cured by treating the symptoms.

His survivor’s mind that still felt the stone against his bleeding fingertips didn’t care.

***

“I know, Julian, I know,” said Jadzia Dax as she gingerly eased onto the biobed in the infirmary. “Don’t overexert myself. You don’t have to say it.”

Julian raised an eyebrow as he ran his sensors over her. “Apparently I don’t, but whether I say it or not doesn’t seem to register with you. I appreciate your passion for exercise, but Klingon _bat’leth_ training isn’t very accommodating for Trill joints. You need to learn your body’s limits.”

“You’d think I would be more aware of the shortcomings of bodies, having lived in eight of them.”

Julian reached for his osteogenic stimulator and hesitated for the briefest of seconds before gently tilting Jadzia’s head away from her cracked collarbone, his fingers just skimming her hair, the thought of touching her bare skin suddenly overwhelming, exhausting. He buried the anxiety, running the tool in steady motions, as she chattered on about the adventures of Emony Dax and her numerous fractures and bruises as a gymnast.

“Now,” he said after a while, interrupting a story about a particularly tricky dismount that had involved a rather impressive moment of field medicine, “just because this is healed doesn’t mean you can go right back into training again. Give it a week to rest and readjust, and next time, try not to block with your bones.”

Jadzia grinned and squeezed his hand in gratitude. “I’m sure I’ll see you again, Julian,” she said, her eyes dancing with mischief as she hopped off the bed and left.

Julian stood still for a moment, breathing deeply, the pressure of her hand burning through his skin like phaser fire.

***

It had been a week and one half. He knew this because the rotations in the infirmary had rolled over again, because he counted every night that he stayed awake and stared out the viewport at the uncaring stars, because he had catalogued the fact that Captain Sisko had stopped telling him to take time off, that Miles O’Brien had started asking more often about getting together for a drink. He knew because he had not had lunch with Garak and he understood that the distance that had grown between them before the imprisonment had not lessened.

He did not want to think about why he found it comforting that at least Garak had not preferred this other Bashir, had not reignited a friendship only to find that the Julian with whom he reconciled was dead. Julian was tired of replacing dead versions of himself.

He rolled his head around slowly, trying to ease the tension in his shoulders, knowing it was a fruitless endeavor. Focusing on the computer screen in front of him, Julian tried to remind himself that this report mattered, that this job was what he loved, that the Changeling hadn’t completely disrupted his records system, at least. He tapped in a few more notes before hearing the door to his office chime.

“Enter,” he said without turning.

“Doctor, Chief O’Brien is here and asking to see you.”

“Did he say why?”

“He’s insisting you treat him, sir.”

Julian turned finally, standing in the rotation and moving toward the door. “What happened?”

The nurse led him toward the biobed where Miles perched uncomfortably, cradling one hand in the other. Julian saw the angry redness of the flesh before Miles could say anything.

“Conduit sparked a mini-explosion,” said Miles, sounding almost apologetic. “Couldn’t pull my hand out fast enough.”

Julian ran the tricorder over the burns, making sure none of the nerves beneath were too damaged. “Second degree,” he said, his mind already skipping ahead through the steps of healing before he even reached for the dermal regenerator. “You’re lucky it didn’t burn any hotter.”

“It burned plenty hot enough,” Miles grimaced as Julian pushed a hypospray for the pain into his shoulder. “You’d think after five years I would have found all the booby traps on this station, but it seems there’s always a new layer.”

Julian continued to work, not responding.

“Julian?” Miles asked tentatively.

“Yes?”

“Are—are you okay?”

“Chief, you’re the one sitting in my infirmary with second-degree burns on his dominant hand.” 

“I know, I meant—you know, in general. It’s…it’s been almost two weeks.”

Julian clenched his jaw. He wouldn’t correct him, insist to the hour how long it had been. “Did you burn yourself so you could come in here and check up on me?” he asked, his tone unexpectedly hard, bruising.

“What? No!” Miles looked affronted at the thought. “Like I said, this’s a tricky station full of traps and bad connections and who knows what. But…but since I’m here, I thought I’d ask. Y’haven’t really ever answered me about goin’ for a pint. Or comin’ over—I mean, if nothing else, you should—well, I guess you should meet Kirayoshi.”

Julian’s grip tightened on the regenerator. “Haven’t been up to it yet, Chief,” he said. “There. Good as new. Keep an eye out for further traps, right?” He reached out as though to pat Miles on the shoulder and pulled his hand back, the distance between them a gulf, a wormhole, a solar system filled with Miles’ confusion and Julian’s anger.

“Julian,” said Miles, grabbing Julian by the elbow as he turned away, the chief’s newly-healed skin shining oddly against Julian’s uniform that still felt strange. Julian fought against the desire to punch him, to break out of the hold, to run before they dragged him away…He focused on Miles, Miles in the infirmary with the burned skin. “D’you—d’you remember when I got back from Argratha?” Miles asked.

Julian looked at him. “Vividly,” he said.

“You—you were good to me, then. When…when I didn’t feel like I fit here, or anywhere. You got me to see I needed help, and you were right, and I’m grateful for it.”

Julian waited, knowing where this was going, knowing Miles needed to say it anyway.

“I just—I want you to know that I get what it’s like to be…off-kilter. And it’s okay to need help gettin’ back on kilter. And I’m…I’m here. You know. If you need.”

Swallowing a thousand responses, Julian nodded. “I know,” he said.

Miles nodded. “Good, then.”

“Take care of that hand,” Julian said, and left before he could throw something, could scream that Miles had no idea what it was like to have had someone else be on-kilter _for_ him, that he had liked the other Bashir fitting in just fine, that the years of their friendship apparently meant nothing when Julian could be so easily replaced. He blinked as he headed back to his office, trying to clear away the image still overlapping Miles’s hand of Martok’s mangled flesh, of Garak’s burned fingers, of the utterly pathetic attempts to heal anyone as the guards came again to haul another to the ring to be beaten unconscious and he couldn’t stop it, couldn’t save them, couldn’t stop wondering when he would bury another friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Argratha reference is DS9 episode 4x19, "Hard Times." I have incredibly deep respect for that episode and how it voices the reality that people don't simply bounce from intense trauma, which seems to be the idea I keep writing over and over.


	2. Chapter 2

Julian Bashir was many things but stupid was not one of them. He knew he was psychologically compromised, likely post-traumatic stress. He knew the flashbacks that hovered at the edges of everything demanded more mental energy than he should be giving. He knew that he needed treatment.

He also knew that he was a Starfleet officer and Starfleet officers were made of sterner stuff. He had read of what starship crews had been through; the Enterprise alone, in all her variations, had libraries of case studies of encounters that should have remanded the whole crew to therapy for months—but they had carried on. And he was in a war; rough things happened in war. That was reality. Kira had tried to teach him that over and over.

He had learned, now.

It frustrated him that he was inhuman in so many ways but not this. He couldn’t outrun the camp, reminded every time someone referenced something he hadn’t actually been here for and the catch—too late—flitted across their features like a shadow; reminded every time he was alone for too long, each night that felt like being in solitary again; reminded every time he brushed the skin of a patient, the contact overwhelming and never enough.

_Add “touch-starved” to the PTSD diagnosis._

What Julian didn’t know was what to do with this knowledge. He would not go to counseling—for reasons even he didn’t fully understand, although the layer of secrets underneath the trauma had quite a bit to do with it. How could he tell a counselor that solitary had felt like being in the hospital again except this time he didn’t even have Kukalaka? How could he explain that of course an alien did a fine job as Julian Bashir when Julian Bashir himself was some hybrid species anyway? No, he would have to work through this some other way.

Worf, Martok, and Garak had been in the camp, would know what he referenced. But Worf had also been here on the station, had not noticed the substitution. He could not trust Worf. And Martok, as much as they appreciated each other, was even braver than the Enterprise crews; he had already converted his reactions to pure and clean anger, spearheading the Klingon efforts to wipe the Dominion off the face of the galaxy. And both of them would be kind, sickeningly kind to the human who did not want kindness but the kind of targeted pain that healed, something to scour the camp from his skin, something that broke him back into place like resetting a bone.

Which left Garak.

Which is why, two weeks after returning, he was standing in front of Garak’s shop, trying to figure out what to say.

“Doctor?” Garak called from inside. “Window shopping today?”

Julian steeled himself and walked inside. The shop was empty; he had made sure of that before walking over after his shift, surprisingly glad to catch Garak still here. He didn’t think he had the courage to go to Garak’s quarters.

“How can I help you?” Garak asked, his voice smooth and suitably bland.

“Will you get a drink with me?” Julian blurted, astounded that that had come out of his mouth. It wasn’t even what he had come here to say—although, when pressed, he was unsure what he _had_ come here to say.

Garak cocked his head, polite confusion pulling his ridges down. “Is this a social visit, Doctor?”

“Yes.”

“I admit we’ve not shared any reading assignments of late. What shall we discuss?”

Julian watched the delicate movements of Garak’s hands as he organized his workstation for the next day and thought about what he wanted, needed, _craved_. He wanted to glut his touch-starved self on contact, on the scaled hands that would be rough, would break him out of this, would break him, period. He wanted touch that grounded him in the reality of being _here_ , here on this station where he’d never belonged with this spy who didn’t, either.

“We could skip the drink and you could just fuck me in the back room,” Julian said, and the absolute stillness it garnered from Garak was almost pleasing enough to override his own shock at having been so bald.

“Ah, Doctor, that is—quite a leap.” Was Julian imagining it, or had Garak’s ridges flushed darker?

“Why? We both know I have the reputation of sleeping with nearly everyone on the station, and I don’t think you’re entirely opposed to the idea of having sex with me.”

“Not the most romantic proposition.”

Julian suddenly couldn’t stand it anymore, felt like his skin was on fire with the need for someone to _touch him_ , to hold him steady against the panic building in his chest, to ground him on the station that felt unreal, to physically prove to him that he was here, that he wasn’t in a simulation or a prison or who knew what else. He crossed the shop in a heartbeat, his long legs carrying him right into Garak’s personal space as he grabbed the tailor by the arm. “What do either of us care about romance?” he hissed, his voice a sound he didn’t recognize that gamboled wildly. “Come on, son of Tain, won’t you take what you’ve always wanted now that it’s offered freely?”

Garak’s blue eyes went ice cold, his whole body rigid. “Throwing insults does not become you, Doctor.”

“What if it’s blackmail?”

Garak laughed, a callous and dismissive sound. “That if I don’t have sex with you, you’ll what? Spread lies about a Cardassian spymaster who has been dead for months? Sully the name of an already-exiled outsider?”

Julian faltered. “He hasn’t been—Tain just died, Martok knows, Martok—”

“Will assist you in blackmailing a tailor for indecent acts by contradicting knowledge held by everyone except those who have read confidential Starfleet debriefings?”

The absurdity of it crushed Julian; trying to blackmail a spy was beyond stupid and he, Julian Bashir, was not stupid. And now he’d overplayed his hand _badly_ , giving Garak more than enough ammunition not only to loathe him but to twist _him_ in any way he wanted. “Garak—” he said, feeling the floor tilt beneath him.

Garak caught him, holding him tightly by both arms, his gaze piercingly intense. “What do you want from me, Doctor?” he said, his voice low and fierce.

“I want you to end me,” said Julian, feeling the Jem’Hadar’s hands curling into his muscles as they threw him into the cell, the darkness of solitary overtaking him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst! I'll update Wednesdays and Sundays, for those trying to plot out upcoming chapters. This one was short, I know; they get longer.


	3. Chapter 3

Julian stretched, his whole body sluggish and strange. He was not in his bed, he could feel that much, and he tensed—was he in the camp? What had happened?

“Welcome back,” Julian heard in Garak’s honeyed tones and the whole debacle of him storming into the shop to demand sex from one of his oldest friends rushed back in full clarity. He groaned.

“Are you in pain?”

Damn Garak, and damn the concern in his voice, and damn this whole situation. Opening his eyes, Julian realized he was in the back room of the shop.

“I haven’t brought you here to take you up on your…offer,” Garak said, watching Julian take in the room. “However, leaving you on the floor after you collapsed seemed less kind.”

“Why didn’t you have me beamed to the infirmary?”

Garak raised an eyeridge. “Would you prefer I had?”

“No.”

“I suspected as much. You are not well, Doctor, but if you had wanted help from your fellow medical professionals, I do not think you would be in my shop.”

“Gods, Garak,” said Julian, sitting up, his head feeling too full and his body too empty. Had he eaten today? He couldn’t remember. “I can’t even begin to explain what—I am so, so sorry. Everything I said was beyond out of line. I’ll just—I’ll just see myself out.” He stood to leave and immediately fell back to the pile of cloth on which Garak had draped him.

“Clearly, you will not,” said Garak. “Here.” He handed Julian what he realized was a groatcake. “It won’t taste very good, but groat has quite a few nutrients in it that might help your current state.”

Julian methodically consumed the cake, thinking of Leeta’s love for them. “Where did you get this? I thought groat was hard to come by.”

“As it is a Cardassian grain, originally, there are those who make a point of informing me when such things come through the station. And there is a replicator pattern for it in the database.”

“But this isn’t replicated.”

“No, it is not.”

Julian finished the cake and felt slightly sick, taking deep breaths as his body recognized the offering of food and slowly accepted it. “Thanks,” he said.

“We are no longer surviving on starvation rations, Dr. Bashir,” said Garak, and Julian hated how _seen_ he felt. Garak had always been like that, understanding more about Julian than he should, seeing him almost too fully while Julian scrambled to keep up with his observational skills—but Garak had been tricked too, hadn’t he?

“I should be going,” he said, and tried to stand again. This time, he managed to stay upright, but the task of walking seemed far, far too much.

“You should be doing a great many things, I imagine,” said Garak idly, examining his fingers while Julian swayed in place. “One of the things you _shall_ be doing is explaining why you burst into my shop, threatened me, and have apparently been doing nothing to take care of yourself in the two weeks since our return.”

Julian sat back down, defeated. “I said I’m sorry, Garak, and I mean it.”

“I heard your apology. An apology is not an explanation.”

Julian swallowed, the groatcake churning in his stomach. He sighed and put his head just above his knees, letting the small wave of nausea run through him. Lack of sleep and food were catching up hard with him, now that he was working full-time instead of just patching up the odd cellmate here and there; even his superhuman structure had its breaking point. The thought almost made him laugh—of course it would be _now_ that he was pushing past the limits, now when it wasn’t even in service of anything other than his own self-pity. “I—I’m not readjusting well.”

“A thing that less observational people than I have noticed.”

“What do you want from me?” Julian said, anger flaring up.

“Your answer to that same question was rather telling, Doctor.”

Julian grimaced, barely remembering his quiet confession before he collapsed into Garak’s arms. “I didn’t mean it.”

“Didn’t you?” Garak leaned forward, the space between them so close, thick with memories, unsaid declarations, and half-guessed secrets. “Did you come back, Dr. Bashir?”

“What? Of course. I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Are you?”

“I appreciate the Socratic method as much as the next man, Garak, but I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

Garak’s lips compressed into a thin line. “Do not be obtuse with me, Doctor. You can pass that off with others, perhaps, but you know that I know better. Besides, after your outrageous behavior earlier, I should think I deserve rather more clarity than you are offering.”

Julian rubbed his face tiredly. “You’re right. You’re right, and I’m sorry.”

“Again, an apology is not an explanation.”

“I can’t leave the camp,” Julian burst out. “The first time it was only a couple of days, but then I spent a week—as near I can tell—in isolation and it was so dark, and when I got out you were there and I didn’t know how to tell you that I had missed you so much, that I had thought of you every time I worked with Tain or saw one of the other Cardassians simply because they looked like you, and now I’m here and nobody noticed the difference except when they tell me that the Changeling was better because of course he was; he brought people sandwiches, he laughed, he joked, he _connected_ and I can’t even connect to you despite you having humored me for _years_ at this point and every night it’s like being in isolation again and I’m waiting for the guards to come back, for Martok to get tossed in broken and bleeding again and I can’t save him, can’t do anything except watch him and Tain and you die and I just want someone to hold me until I feel like I’m actually _here_ and I have absolutely no idea who I can ask that of because it would mean too much, it would be too real and I thought that if I came to you and pressured you into something then at least it would be _something_ and I would take that, take the fact that I could _feel_ again and it isn’t stone or Jem’Hadar but you, _you_ pulling me back until I’m actually _here_ , like I survived, like I _belong_.”

The two of them sat in silence, digesting the honesty, Julian slightly shivering from the overexertion.

“I have not died, Doctor,” Garak said into the quiet.

“I know,” Julian said, suddenly beyond exhausted, “but considering I’ve watched you die before, I’m pretty well able to imagine it.” Belatedly, he realized that the Dominion simulation was classified, but he was beyond caring.

For his part, Garak thankfully didn’t ask how Julian had seen such a thing. “What do you do, at night?”

“What?” Julian raised his head to look Garak in the eye and was surprised to see him watching Julian intently, almost as though he felt as conflicted as Julian himself.

“At night; you said it’s like being in isolation again. What do you do to…counteract that?”

Julian shrugged. “Pace, a lot. Think. Watch the stars. End up taking a sleeping hypospray.”

“Self-medicate.”

“Within reasonable medical limits. I know how much to prescribe.”

“Yet you want me to ‘end’ you.”

Julian sighed. “I wasn’t in my right mind.” 

“I find that is often where we say our truest statements.”

Julian thought of pulling Garak out of the wall after the light had gone out, his whole body shaking with the fear of the enclosed space; he thought of Garak asking his father to acknowledge him, just this once. “Sometimes,” he agreed.

Garak was silent for a long while, observing Julian until Julian shifted uncomfortably under the gaze. He remembered Tain saying something once about Garak having broken a man simply by watching him and he realized it might well be true.

“Doctor, why did you seek me out for sex?”

“What?”

“You said you wanted someone to hold you until you could actually be here, but you propositioned me for sex—‘fucking,’ if I remember your demand correctly.”

Julian winced. “It’s easier.”

“Sex is easier?”

“It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

Garak snorted in disgust. “You humans have successfully deluded yourselves in many things, but the idea that rough sex between two people who have just returned from a prison camp doesn’t mean anything is a rather new level, even for you.”

“I just mean—”

“That I am a tool for your need?”

“What? No!” Julian paused, thinking. “Well, kind of. I’m sorry, Garak, I just…” He trailed off, unsure himself what he “just.”

“There is one other matter before we return to your peculiarly unthinking cruelty of using me to ‘break’ you because I am a Cardassian and, therefore, naturally perfectly suited to sexual violence; I do wonder whether the Klingons turned you down or it was your first choice to come to an interrogator who only understands pain.”

“Garak, no—”

“If you ever attempt to use Tain against me again in any method of manipulation,” Garak overrode him, his voice chillingly unyielding and his face terrifyingly blank, “I shall ensure that isolation at the internment camp becomes one of your fondest memories that you beg for in preference to the reality I will create.”

Julian’s mouth went dry; he not only believed Garak was completely serious, he had no doubt Garak would be able to follow through on such a threat.

“Do we understand each other?”

Julian nodded.

“Good. Now, Doctor, it has been a long day. I suggest you return to your quarters and your hyposprays.”

Lost, Julian stood again. He found he had a little more strength in him but still felt rather ill; he would have to eat again before taking anything to sleep. Garak stood with him and led the way out of the storeroom, not looking back. “Do get some rest, Doctor,” he called without turning around. “I would hate to repeat this episode.”

Defeated, mortified, and lonelier than ever, Julian left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise this does stop hurting at some point. Just...not for a while yet. Julian basically hit the bingo line of Garak's tender spots.
> 
> Also, a groatcake is like a Bajoran/Cardassian pancake. Leeta mentions it in "The Magnificent Ferengi" in season 6 and I'm just backdating the idea that she would have said something about it when dating Julian.


	4. Chapter 4

Watching the doctor lope off across the Promenade, listing slightly with the exhaustion and lack of nutrients Garak was now certain Julian had been refusing himself, Garak wanted to punch a hole through the doorframe. It was beyond unfair, this whole charade, and no doubt Tain was laughing uproariously from whatever hellscape had accepted his spirit. _Years_ Garak had waited, had wanted, had admired the human with the blinding smile, the easy affection. Garak had walked with him through every tantalizing new partner, every break-up, every leap and bound of his career as he grew into himself. Garak didn’t flatter himself enough to think they could ever be more than friends, but he had never managed to dislodge the desire—not just for the body, although he had wanted _that_ from the very first moment of watching those long fingers bat at a decorative flower, but of the whole of Julian Bashir. The man was brilliant, funny, naïve, and kind. He was everything Garak didn’t understand about the Federation but _better_ , fascinating rather than invasive. Garak respected Sisko, even liked Dax, but he _cherished_ Bashir like the treasure he was.

And now—Garak turned from the doorway, refusing to name the betrayal he felt. That Julian was self-destructing had been obvious for several days, but that he had chosen _Garak_ to be the instrument of it? It was insulting, it was painful, it was infuriating.

It made sense. 

Garak, whom Julian had seen laid bare in the most alarming ways; Garak, who had told Julian tales upon tales of his capacity for cruelty; Garak, tool of the coldest dictator in the galaxy—of course Julian would come to him to be unmade, to be ended, to be broken open when he could no longer reach the seams of himself.

It sickened Garak that now, _now_ was when Julian finally saw him for what he was—and wanted to _use_ that to its fullest extent of pain. For so long Garak had wanted Julian’s hands on him, had wanted to feel the strange smoothness of that alien body, and for it to be offered like _this_?

Garak laughed bitterly, knowing it could be no other way for an exile like him—the son of Tain indeed. He stood staring at the back room for a moment, Julian’s demand ringing in his ears, his mind supplying the fantasy he’d already had a thousand times of the willing body opening to him as he swallowed the moans so they would not be heard.

He did not finish putting away his work before sweeping out of the shop and closing it behind him.

***

“Dr. Bashir, are you all right?”

Julian blinked rapidly, the swing of dizziness fading as he re-focused on the nurse in front of him. “Fine, just fine,” he said, reaching out a hand to brace himself against the console while he tried to slow his heartbeat.

“Sir, you don’t look fine.”

Julian sighed. He had tried to sleep without the hypospray the night before for the first time and had thrashed so hard in his nightmare that he had pulled his shoulder out of joint; popping it back in had been the beginning of his day as he abandoned sleep. The pain-relieving hypospray was wearing off now and he had no doubt the pain was combining with the lack of food and rest to make him truly sorry-looking. He was lucky, really, that no one had asked Captain Sisko to take him off duty.

“I know, Nurse Tagana. I’m just a little tired.”

“Sir…” The Bajoran hesitated, clearly about to say something she was unsure would be well-received. “You haven’t had any time off since you returned. Perhaps it would be best to take a couple of days?”

“You mean the month and a half holiday I had wasn’t enough to put me in shipshape?”

Tagana winced. “I doubt it was a holiday, sir.”

Julian closed his eyes and the room tilted a little underneath him. “No, it was not.”

The pair stood in silence for a moment before Tagana cleared her throat. “I’ll—I’d better return to this project. I…I hope you know we— _I_ am sorry I…I didn’t notice,” she said, and Julian opened his eyes to see her face flush, eyes fixed on the floor. “I don’t know if anyone’s actually _told_ you that, sir, but I’m glad that you’re back. The actual you.”

Julian stared at her, a cacophony of feelings ricocheting within him. “No, Tagana, no one has told me that,” he admitted. 

She looked back up at him. “I won’t pretend we could have known, but I will apologize that we didn’t. But…it was _us_ not knowing, not you. Don’t break yourself for our mistake. Sir.”

Julian could feel his eyebrows climbing to his hairline. “Moonlighting as a therapist, Tagana?”

“Oh, no, sir, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry, I just—I know if it were _me_ , I would feel like I had to—I don’t know, to _prove_ that I was better, like there was a real difference. I don’t mean to put that on you, though, sir.” She turned to leave. Julian reached out and gently caught her elbow.

“You’re not completely wrong, Tagana,” he said to the question in her eyes. “And you’re right that I’ve not—I’ve not taken time off to…process.” He rubbed a hand over his face and felt his shoulder protest angrily. “But I want you to trust that I know what I need to do, okay?”

Tagana looked skeptically at him, taking in the sallow skin and the gauntness, the exhaustion written in bold strokes all across him. “Will you allow yourself to do what is needed?” she asked softly. 

Julian’s face hardened. “I will act in accordance with my duties as chief medical officer,” he responded, his voice harsh. “Is that acceptable to you, _Nurse_?”

She dipped her head quickly, replying, “Yes, sir,” in clipped tones before abandoning him for her workstation.

Furious with himself for the lack of control, Julian took a step toward her to apologize and the room spun again. He grabbed the console, breathing deeply as he felt his pulse in his fingertips, his body refusing to continue this charade any longer, his stomach roiling in its emptiness as his legs gave way and he fell to the floor yet again.

***

“Doctor,” said a neutral tone above him as Julian swam back toward consciousness. “I’m glad you’re with us once more.”

_Sisko_ , Julian’s brain helpfully supplied. Why was Sisko talking to him?

Julian opened his eyes fully and rolled his head around—he was in a biobed, machinery beeping around him, and he closed his eyes again in memory. He had fainted in his own infirmary—now they would know, now they would have _data_ about him, about his malnutrition, about his systematic destruction of himself.

Of _course_ Sisko would be called in to address this.

“Captain,” Julian responded. His voice sounded cracked and tired.

“Doctor, I am aware that your health was…neglected while in Camp 371, but your nurses are telling me that there has been no improvement from the levels they took when you first returned. Surely these things do not take weeks to begin changing.”

_If Garak were here, he’d have a wonderful lie to prove just that_ , Julian thought to himself, the idea of Garak lancing through him with almost physical pain. “No, sir, they generally do not.”

“‘Generally’?”

Julian did not want to have this conversation, did not want to admit to his _captain_ that he had diagnosed himself with post-traumatic stress and left it untreated, unacknowledged. “There are some variables that can prolong certain deficiencies,” he said to the ceiling.

“Variables,” said Sisko, and Julian wanted to sink into the floor.

“Captain, perhaps I should take a couple of days to rest while these variables settle out,” Julian suggested, knowing it was either he excuse himself or the captain pull him off duty.

“I think that is a fine idea,” responded Sisko, confirming Julian’s read. “Starting now, I should say, or whenever they let you out of this contraption.”

“Now would be good,” said Julian, reaching to the buttons on the biobed.

“Doctor, I don’t think—” 

“I’m releasing myself on my own recognizance,” Julian announced to Sisko and to the nurse who hurried over. “I’ll be heading to my quarters for rest, which I can monitor myself.”

Sisko watched him as he sat up and Julian met his gaze, startled by the amount of awareness in Sisko’s eyes. “Rest well,” Sisko said, and a world of unsaid things nestled in the short phrase. “I expect you to be ready for duty in three days—and if you are not, to make yourself available for any further treatments that are necessary.”

Julian hesitated before nodding, recognizing the steel in the polite tone. “I will, sir,” he said, standing and walking to his office to close it down properly before this enforced leave. He tried to pretend he didn’t feel Captain Sisko’s eyes on him the whole way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nurse Tagana is a one-off character from season 4 played by the actress who would become Leeta Alexander in Babylon 5, so she definitely isn't in the infirmary in canon by season 5 but I pulled her there anyway because there have to be more nurses than Jabara.
> 
> And legit, I looked through the scripts for both "By Inferno's Light" and "Dr. Bashir, I Presume" and NO ONE says "I'm sorry" or "it must be difficult" or anything other than "the changeling was easier to get along with." No wonder Julian has issues, sheesh.
> 
> Space Dad says take your vitamins and drink water. He wants you to be healthy and well-rested.


	5. Chapter 5

It did not surprise him, really, that his feet carried him from the infirmary to Garak’s shop instead of his quarters. He knew what waited in his quarters. It was not anything that would help him.

He did not know what waited in Garak’s shop.

“Garak?” Julian called, tentative in the empty space.

Garak emerged from a dressing room, arms half-full of clothing. “If you would simply lay the dress over that table, I will have its alterations ready for you by the end of the week,” he said, his face registering nothing as he looked coolly at Julian. Julian understood the warning— _we are not alone_ —and turned to browse the racks while he heard the dressing room’s occupant emerge and exchange further pleasantries. He never tired of it, this side of Garak that was so smooth and pleasing, this persona that was all manipulation and yet genuinely engaged in the work. He never tired of how many sides Garak had, truthfully.

The customer left and Julian turned to the center table where Garak worked with his head down. “Garak?” he repeated.

“Looking for a new holosuite costume?” asked Garak without raising his head, his voice the same bland and helpful tone he’d just used with the other shopper.

“No, I…” He what? Julian knew full well how they had last left each other, how he had tried to bully Garak in this very room. “I’ve been released from the infirmary,” he finished, unsure why he needed Garak to know this.

“Permanently?”

“No!” Julian was startled by the idea. “No; for a few days. I’m on leave, technically on my own prescription, but the captain was pretty firm that I take…time.”

Garak did not answer, finishing his piece of cloth and turning to take it to his pile in the back room. Julian followed at a distance. “I—I fainted at work today,” he called after him, feeling the bite of the admission snag in his throat. “You were right, Garak, you read me totally right—you always do, you—”

“Why are you here, Doctor?” Garak asked, his voice low and tight as he returned, walking into Julian’s space with such ferocity that Julian took a step back. “To reassure me that I can tell when a human is denying himself health? Thank you, I will be sure to add ‘physician’ to my list of skills.” His eyes were hoarfrost in a frozen face, the entirety of him so cold and unforgiving that Julian nearly shivered.

“I’m sorry,” said Julian softly instead, fighting his desire to take another step backward. “I know I’ve said that already, and I can’t say it enough, but I’m sorry for what I said to you the other day, what I—who I tried to make you be. I’m here because I want you to know that you were right, that I’m not okay, that I don’t know what to do with that and I don’t know who to ask to know what to do with that and you always seem to—to know, to know _me_ , but…but that’s not fair, either, I guess.” Julian closed his eyes, the overwhelming sense of uncertainty rising in him like the sea. He could feel himself drowning in it, in the fact that he couldn’t heal this with regenerators and monitors and analyzers—the problem was with his mind and he could not make that obey him, could not make it change, could not—

He opened his eyes when he felt Garak’s hands on his biceps, realized he was shaking, realized he could not stop shaking, could not stand anymore and he did not care that he would collapse on Garak’s floor again as he reached out to grab Garak’s tunic in fistfuls as he stumbled.

Garak caught him, his arms wrapping around Julian’s thin waist as Julian sagged into him and they both slid to the floor. “Computer, close and secure main door and shutter front window; lights to thirty percent,” Garak called. In the sudden dimness Julian trembled, his body convulsing as exhaustion and stress and fear and nausea refused to wait any longer. Garak shifted him so that Julian sat in between his legs and enveloped Julian, clutching him tightly to his chest, the ferocity of his grip keeping Julian from moving too far as the tremors jolted through his body with dry, silent sobs. Julian lost count of the minutes of Garak holding him as he tried to keep breathing, to avoid throwing up, to stay conscious, to be present to the fact that _Garak was embracing him_ , was keeping him contained. After a while his body stilled and he could feel Garak’s chest rising and falling underneath him, steady and deep. Julian inhaled jaggedly and Garak’s arms eased slightly to allow his ribcage to expand.

“Garak?” Julian asked, his voice strangely cracked and broken. He tilted his head to look up and realized Garak had his eyes closed, his head leaned back against the shop table.

“Julian,” Garak responded, and the use of his first name sent Julian reeling even further. Garak opened his eyes and looked into Julian’s drawn face, at the exhaustion like bruises under the bleached-out hazel rings swallowed by black pupils in the dim light.

“I’m kind of a mess,” Julian said, and Garak laughed, a thing exhausted in its own right, at the understatement.

“Yes, my dear doctor, you are,” Garak responded, shifting Julian’s body weight slightly but not letting go. “So what now?”

“I don’t know.” Julian’s voice was small, shy, and he curled one hand into Garak’s tunic again. “But I—I want—I want to…” He trailed off before reaching up and running one hand down Garak’s neck ridge.

Garak jerked back from the stimulation and Julian withdrew his hand as though he’d been burned.

“Oh, Garak, I’m sorry, I forgot—I forgot the ridges were—I’m sorry,” Julian said lamely. “I just…part of the mess is being touch-starved, and I just wanted—I mean, I’ve wanted for a long time…well.” He reached up again to touch Garak’s face and Garak intercepted him, wrapping Julian’s hand in his own, pulling it down between them and tightening his other arm around Julian’s torso, holding him in place.

“Doctor,” he said, the formality slipping back into place, “this is hardly the place and you are hardly in the condition for such overtures.” _If you even actually want them_ , Garak said to himself, rage sizzling through him that once again the man he desired was offered in such a despicable way, a way Garak could not accept. It was a mockery of him and he hated Julian for it, suddenly, hated that this brilliant human could not see how much it _hurt_ to have this dangled in front of him. He pushed Julian away and grasped the counter’s edge, pulling himself up and pausing to let his legs adjust to the bloodflow once more.

“Garak,” began Julian from the floor.

“Get out,” Garak said, his back to the doctor. His own bluntness surprised him.

“No.”

Garak turned. “What?”

“No,” replied Julian, pulling his long legs around and hugging one knee to his chest. “I agree that this is hardly the place and I’m not in good condition, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a place and I can’t be in a condition.”

“And you think taking up part of my workday to try out your self-destructive fantasies merits you the conversation about what those would be?”

Julian flinched. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to make you close your shop.”

“Yet here we are.”

“Garak,” said Julian, getting to his feet, “we need to talk.”

“Oh, _now_ we need to talk? I have the feeling that you’ve said what you need to say.”

“No, Elim, I haven’t.”

Garak went still. “I have not given you permission to use that name.”

“I know, and I try not to use it, but I need your attention and that was a surefire way to get it.”

“Manipulation again, Doctor? They do say practice makes perfect.”

“Garak, I’m sorry; I don’t know what the story behind the name is and I’ll stay away from it if it’s that important to you, but please, _listen_ to me. Please, would you give me that much?”

Garak folded his arms and settled against the desk, waiting.

“Okay,” said Julian, flustered. “Okay.” He settled into a stance with his hands folded in front of him, almost as though he were about to deliver a recitation. “As much as a doctor can ever diagnose himself, I know that I have post-traumatic stress with trauma reaction anxiety and a slight hormonal imbalance from lack of positively reinforcing physical contact. I have compounded this by adding malnutrition and exhaustion owing to symptoms of nausea, insomnia, and panic attacks. Medically speaking, I am very much not okay.”

This was not news to Garak, though the official descriptors were unfamiliar to him. Some of them translated clunkily and he wondered at the disorders themselves.

“I know that I have not—not behaved well with you this week,” Julian continued, “and I will say again that I am so, so sorry about that. I wish I could blame it on all of what I’ve just named, and to a certain extent I can but that doesn’t change the fact that the things I said to you and the way I tried to— _force_ you into something were not acceptable in any way.” He drew himself up and clenched his hands together, his eyes somewhere around Garak’s stomach. “However, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything underlying it. Garak, I…I’ve been attracted to you for a long time and seeing you in the camp, truly _seeing_ you in a fuller way than ever before, didn’t dampen that—if anything, it increased it. I’m a mess right now and I don’t think that’s going to get solved any time soon, but I’m a mess that wants you, wants _all_ of you.”

Garak couldn’t breathe. This had to be a joke, a trick, another attempt at manipulation, another moment of naïve cruelty.

“I understand if you don’t want to deal with this,” said Julian hurriedly, gesturing at himself. “Or if I’ve insulted you past the ability to even think of being with me in any way. But I wanted—I _needed_ you to know because I don’t know how many more times either of us is going to get caught in this war and,” his voice hitched, “I don’t like that we have been separate enough that you couldn’t even tell there was an imposter. I miss you, Garak; I miss _us_ , and if all you ever want is lunches and fights about books, I can at least have that back. But if you could ever agree to—to _more_ , I wanted you to know that I want that. That I have wanted that. Even though that’s dangerous for both of us in ways you, well, you don’t even know yet.”

The ambiguity of that last declaration intrigued Garak, or at least intrigued the part of him that was still capable of multi-layered thinking and wasn’t swept up in the wave of disbelief and cynicism. He could never have Julian; he had known that from the first day he laid his hands on the human’s thin shoulders. To think otherwise was dangerous, was idealistic, was foolish.

“Garak?” asked Julian, meeting his eyes.

“Why aren’t you scared of me?” Garak replied, and that was _definitely_ not what he had wanted to come out of his mouth.

Julian’s lips quirked in a momentary smile. “Perhaps I should be,” he said. “But I’ve seen what you’re capable of for good, and I don’t think you’d hurt me if you could avoid it.” He looked down again, ashamed. “Even though I’ve given you plenty of reason for it.”

It was all Garak could do to keep his jaw from dropping open. 

“And I know, you think I should keep my distance for my own safety; even Tain said as much in the—in the camp.” Julian took a deep breath, re-centering himself. “But I’m not going to run from you. Where would I go? I want _you_ , Garak, and…and I want you to want _me_ , and I can only admit that because I’m so unhealthy right now that you can’t actually make it a whole lot worse, so I guess now I know what it takes for me to be honest with you, the consummate liar.” He smiled but it wavered, his humor uncertain, his body still slightly trembling.

The pause went on a beat too long. “Garak? You’re allowed to say no—by all the stars, I know I need to make it clear that I won’t force you into this and I’m sorry, again I’m sorry, that was…but I would like you to say _something_.”

“What do you do in the night, when it feels like solitary?”

Startled by the non sequitur, Julian frowned. “Like I told you, hyposprays.”

“But not always.”

“What?”

“You’re holding yourself differently today.”

“Oh,” Julian said and sighed in exasperation. “I tried to sleep without them last night and it, ah, didn’t go well. I…well, I pulled my shoulder out and had to put it back and it’s pretty sore.”

“Not sore enough that you couldn’t grab me.”

“Shall I apologize for that, too?” said Julian, looking down in embarrassment. “I’m sorry I keep falling apart on you, Garak. You just—you’re the strongest person I know, and I don’t,” he took a deep breath, “I don’t trust anyone else.”

“But you trust me.”

Julian nodded.

The sheer foolishness of it silenced Garak again.

Julian patted the counter absently after a moment. “I think that’s as much of an answer as I’m going to get; it’s pretty clear for you. I _am_ sorry, Garak.” He turned to leave and realized the door was still locked to Garak’s code. “Would you at least please let me out?” he asked without turning.

Garak’s brain finally caught up to the absurdity of the situation. This was _real_ , this was _happening_ : Julian had offered himself. Himself fully compromised, to be sure, and Garak wasn’t stupid enough to think that once Julian had his head back on straight he wouldn’t end this, but it was a start, it was a gift, it was enough to reach the ravaged parts in Garak himself that had kept him awake with the memories of the light shorting out in the wall space, with the dismissal in Tain’s voice, with the sick fear that he wouldn’t be fast enough, smart enough, good enough to save them all, to save Julian.

“Wait,” he said before he could think better of it. “Where are you going?”

“Back to my quarters,” said Julian. “It’s where I told the captain I’d go.”

“To sleep?”

Julian shrugged. “To try, at least. And at some point I’ll need to eat.”

“Would you like company?”

Julian turned, wonder and hope galloping across the face that had lost so much of its unguarded expressiveness in this war. “Depends.”

Garak held up a hand. “I am still not having sex with you,” _not yet but please, please one day_ , “but I found that our…sharing bedspace sometimes in the camp was mutually beneficial. Perhaps we can address your insomnia…together.”

The relief and gratitude on Julian’s face were overwhelming. “I would appreciate that,” Julian said. “But—but I don’t want to take any more time from your shop than I have to, and it’s only midday.”

Garak glanced at the table beside him and the work on it. If he were honest with himself—which he always was, as lies were for other people—he knew that his work would be better if he could get some sleep. He, too, was flirting with the edges of exhaustion, but he had much better practice hiding it than the demonstrative human. “I will return to it in the morning,” he said.

The sigh that left Julian was silent but seemed to bleed all the tension from him, leaving his body stooped in an odd way. “My quarters okay?”

Garak nodded and tidied his desk before releasing the door and leaving, trying not to think too hard about this choice and how it could bury him so easily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I 312% think that Garak wouldn't really know the purpose of a hug and would be very hesitant to give one, but if you were lucky enough for him to give it a go it would be the best damn hug you ever had in your life.


	6. Chapter 6

Neither of them spoke as they rode the lift to the habitat ring, as Garak stayed ever-so-slightly behind Julian while they walked to his quarters. Julian keyed in his code and entered, Garak glancing around to ensure they were unseen before following. It would not do to incite gossip in the fishbowl of the station.

“It’s kind of a mess, I know,” apologized Julian as Garak took in the quarters. It had been years since Garak had been in this room and he almost smiled at the idea of a “mess”—several padds were scattered about the sofa and stacked on the table, but otherwise, the place was almost sterile in its appearance. Had Julian so thoroughly rejected this place after the Changeling? Had the Changeling been the one to depersonalize it? Had it always been like this?

Having never seen it in the light, Garak didn’t know. He felt a strange sliver of sorrow at the idea that Julian had never even put art on the walls; what kept him from settling here? He wasn’t like Garak, didn’t think he would ever have to leave at a moment’s notice.

Did he?

“Would you, ah, would you like something to drink?” Julian asked.

Garak shook himself mentally. “A glass of rokassa juice would not go amiss,” he said. He watched Julian order the juice for Garak and water for himself from the replicator and bring them back, handing one glass over but not letting go, his fingers carefully not touching Garak’s.

“You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,” Julian said, looking Garak in the eye.

“And if I want to?”

“Then I make no promises for whether any of us will actually get any sleep; I don’t know about you, but my brain has been pretty inventive in some of the nightmares it’s concocted.” Julian grimaced as he let go of the glass.

_I know what you mean_ , Garak thought to himself. The pair finished their drinks in silence and Julian took the glasses back to the recycler.

“So, ah, I don’t know if I have anything that would fit you as far as pajamas, but I’m not keen on sleeping in my uniform, if you don’t mind,” said Julian, taking a step toward the bedroom.

“I shall be fine in this,” Garak responded, gesturing to his outfit.

“Suit yourself,” Julian shrugged. “I bet you _do_ actually sleep in that much fabric.”

“Seems rather foolish to sleep in the nude.”

Julian’s lips quirked. “There’s quite a bit of ground between that number of layers and ‘nude,’ but if that’s where you want to go…”

Garak looked at him.

“Right, not here for that, got it. Sorry.” He deflated slightly. “Well, considering I’ve fallen over several times lately from things including exhaustion, I guess now is as good a time as any to try to sleep.” Julian entered the bedroom and Garak steeled himself, forcing down the dissatisfaction that this was how he was going to bed with the doctor—as a sleep aid, a Cardassian weighted blanket.

It was yet another in the long line of humiliations that was his life; really, he should be expecting such things by now.

“Coming?” Julian said, poking his head back out into the main room.

Garak nodded and followed him in; the bed, holding the center of the room, was much smaller than he remembered. Surely the two of them would not fit.

“You can at least take off your shoes,” Julian called from the refresher. Garak waited until he came back out, Julian’s lanky frame exaggerated by the oversized pajamas that probably had used to fit him in some degree. The thinness of the man startled Garak; it was striking in this presentation.

“I know,” Julian said ruefully, misinterpreting Garak’s stare, “these pajamas are a crime against fashion and I have no taste in color palettes.”

It was true, but then the pajamas looked so soft that Garak almost didn’t care that they looked as though they had been made by a person who believed humans to be three boxes stacked atop one another. Just as well; this was not the time to be ogling Julian, though the weight loss concerned Garak far more than it titillated him.

“Fortunately only your bed and I shall see them,” Garak responded, realizing the silence had stretched almost too far.

“Well,” Julian said. “It’s a good thing this whole exercise is about cuddling, because we’re going to have to get pretty darn close to ensure neither of us falls off. I, for one, would not like to have to pop my shoulder back in again.” He grimaced.

They stared at the bed for a moment before Julian called out, “Computer, lights twenty percent,” and climbed onto the bed, patting the mattress beside him.

Garak took a deep breath, _wanting_ , feeling this moment spark like the wire through his mind.

“Garak?” said Julian uncertainly. “It really is okay if you’re not comfortable with this.”

Releasing his breath, Garak climbed onto the bed, almost immediately having to shape himself around Julian to fit. They shifted into each other, finally settling into Julian pressing his back into Garak’s chest with Garak’s arm wrapped around his midsection. They lay there a moment, letting themselves recognize and release their tension. Suddenly Julian chuckled.

“Yes?”

“It’s just, well,” Julian’s abdomen bounced under Garak’s arm, “this position used to be known pretty commonly as ‘spooning.’”

Garak stiffened and Julian held tightly to his arm.

“It was before we as a species ever met Cardassians,” Julian said, correctly reading Garak’s offense. “It’s not meant to tie into the slur against you, but that’s kind of why it’s funny. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you.”

Garak relaxed slightly and Julian breathed out, loosening his hold on Garak’s arm. “Perhaps we need not name this,” Garak said, his breath ghosting against Julian’s neck.

Julian shivered slightly. “I can agree with that. Computer, lights out.”

They rested quietly a moment in the starlight and Garak could feel Julian’s tension lessening slightly, slightly, slightly. After a while a small voice tinged with fatigue whispered, “Thank you, Garak,” and Julian’s breathing evened out in sleep. 

Garak did not admit to himself that he pulled the human a little bit closer before letting himself drift into a light doze.

***

Garak woke without opening his eyes, feeling the tension in his muscles and a heavy warmth pressing—no, _squirming_ against him. What--?

Julian.

The absurdity of the whole situation slammed through him like an asteroid as his eyes flipped open and he focused on Julian tucked tightly against him. The man was pressing back into Garak as though to lose himself in Garak’s chest, his protruding ribs imprinting themselves on the arm wrapped around Julian’s torso. Julian shivered and dug his fingers into Garak’s hand splayed over his heart. Garak winced as the fingernails cut shallow grooves into his scales; they would heal quickly, but the ferocity of Julian’s grip surprised him.

“Doctor,” he said, lifting his head to speak across Julian’s ear. “Doctor, wake up.”

Julian thrashed slightly, his other hand curled in a fist around the corner of the pillow.

“Doctor,” Garak tried again, “Doctor, it’s Garak. You’re on Deep Space Nine. I—I am here. You are not alone.”

Julian’s breathing was shallow and fast, his skin oddly pale in the low starlight. Garak tried to sit up but was held fast by the arm to which Julian clung in his sleep. Garak huffed in frustration and decided to try the direct approach; he closed his hand over Julian’s chest, digging in his own nails to scrape the flesh just under the open neck of the soft shirt as he pulled Julian even closer to him, the weight so little that he could scoot Julian the few centimeters to make his point with little effort at all. 

Whatever part of it was disconcerting enough, Garak wasn’t sure, but it did the trick. Julian gasped to wakefulness, his body spasming with the shift.

“Doctor,” Garak tried again, “are you awake?”

“Garak?” asked Julian, looked down at his hand wrapped in a death grip around Garak’s. He realized there was blood on his chest, on Garak’s scales, thin red and brown lines beading on light clawmarks on them both. “Garak?” he asked again, turning his head up to meet Garak’s gaze.

“I do apologize for harming you, Doctor, but it seemed the only way to bring you back to wakefulness.”

“Did I scratch you like that?”

“You did.”

“Oh, Garak,” said Julian, mortified, as he released Garak and sat up against the wall. “I am so sorry.”

“It is why I am here, Doctor.”

“To let me injure you?”

“To help you fight against the nightmares.”

Julian closed his eyes and let his head fall against the wall, taking a few deep breaths to even out his heart rate. “See why I haven’t been sleeping?” he said without opening his eyes, attempting a forced chuckle.

Garak didn’t answer. Julian raised his head and opened his eyes. “Garak? I…I really am sorry.”

Garak was doing some deep, resetting breathing of his own, trying not to let Julian see it. The feeling of waking with Julian in his arms, of the smooth limbs burrowing back into him, the curve of his back fitting neatly into Garak’s hip creases—it was not the Dominion camp Garak was trying to wash out of his mind.

“I—here, let me go get something to clean…to clean these cuts,” Julian said, rolling off the bed and heading to the bathroom. By the time he returned with slightly damp cloths, Garak felt present and under control enough to tolerate Julian holding his hand, rubbing the compress over the superficial grazes, bending over Garak’s fingers in the low light to be sure the bleeding wasn’t severe enough to merit a dermal regenerator.

“I truly didn’t mean to hurt you, Garak. If—when we agreed to this, if I’d thought…” Julian trailed off as he finished the last of the scratches, holding the cloth in one hand while not letting go with the other, head bent slightly over their joined palms.

Garak cleared his throat and pulled his hand back. “You could not have known every possibility of your unconscious actions,” he said.

Julian closed his now-empty hand loosely, his whole appearance looking lost, somehow. “No, but I’ve caused you enough pain lately. Now I’ve literally drawn blood.”

“And I’ve drawn yours,” Garak said, reaching for the cooling compress and pressing it lightly against Julian’s chest. “Do not neglect your own healing.”

Julian put a hand over Garak’s on the cloth and looked up, his eyes intense in the low light. “Garak, I—”

Garak tried to let go of the cloth, to refuse the question in those eyes, but Julian pressed harder, trapping his fingers. Garak had walked into this. He should have known better.

“I don’t think I’m the only one whose healing needs some attention,” Julian said quietly.

“I don’t think I’m the one who hasn’t been eating or sleeping,” Garak countered, his voice harsher than he’d intended as he tried to curb the twin panics of not being able to let go of Julian and of not wanting to. This was going to go too far, he could not take advantage of this, he _could not_ —

“Garak.” Julian’s voice was soft, so soft, the voice that Garak had heard coaxing him out of the wall, laying him on a cot in a dismal grey room. “Please. You didn’t say yes to this for no reason.” Julian gestured to the space between them and Garak took the opportunity to pull his hand away from Julian’s chest, letting the cloth drop as though it had burned him. Julian sighed and picked it up, turning it over and over again in his fingers. “You could have said no.”

“And risk being blackmailed into illicit activities again?”

Julian winced. “I would not do that again. I should never have done that in the first place.”

_Because you didn’t need to force me, you stupid boy_ , Garak rumbled in his head, promptly burying the thought at the back of his mind. “You should not have,” he agreed.

The two sat in silence for a moment until Julian stirred. “Getting cold,” he said, holding up the cloth. He got up, avoiding Garak’s knee entirely, and went to the restroom.

Garak sighed and stood. This had been a mistake, a complete idiocy from beginning to end. He could not trust this doctor who lashed out so fiercely in his own pain; he could not stop wanting to hold him so tightly that neither of them fell apart anymore in the vacuum of their own loneliness.

“Don’t leave,” said Julian, leaning against the doorframe. He must have realized that was what would come next.

“Or what?” Garak challenged.

“Or we’ll keep dancing around this instead of doing something about it.”

“‘This’?”

One, two, three strides and Julian was right next to Garak, their chests almost touching, his fingers reaching up to stroke down the ridge on Garak’s jaw. “This,” he whispered, and kissed Garak gently.

Garak’s head tilted forward, tipping up ever so slightly to meet the taller man, leaning—

He pulled away, his legs bumping against the bed behind him. “Doctor,” he said in dismissal, and sidestepped to leave.

“Garak,” Julian said, grabbing Garak’s arm.

“Giving another try at manhandling, are we?”

Julian instantly let go.

They looked at each other in the starlight, Garak examining Julian’s too-thin face as Julian memorized the way the scales became distinct this close. The kiss and the camp and the war and the fire that burned too hot to cleanse without incinerating smoldered between them until Garak left, trying not to make it look like the flight that it was.

Julian ran his fingers over the gashes on his chest before replicating a hypospray that was far too much for his doctor’s mind and slipping into deliberate oblivion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, so, remember that the tag is hurt/ _comfort_ and I promise both, I swear.
> 
> Also, I will never leave on the table the opportunity to point out how awkward it would be to explain why we call it "spooning" to a Cardassian.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, that tag for suicidal thoughts? Here it be. Also a bit in the next chapter.

It was too early. It was too early to be awake—if he had ever really gone back to sleep, he wasn’t quite sure—and it was too early to be getting dressed, and it was certainly too early to be contemplating going back to Julian’s quarters to—what? Apologize? Garak shook his head in frustration as he closed the last hooks on his tunic. He had no intention of apologizing; Julian had no right, _no right_ to kiss him, to _lie_ to him like that. There was nothing that could happen between them, not in the middle of a war, not in the middle of Julian’s slow but steady breakdown, not in the middle of the reality of Garak being Garak and Julian being, well, Julian. It wasn’t fair.

Garak huffed loudly at himself. It had been entirely too long that he’d lived under Federation ideology that he expected anything at all to be _fair_. Hadn’t his lovely reunion with Tain in the camp reminded him of that?

It was too early to think about why he continued to get ready, why his feet took him down the hallways to Julian’s quarters, the warmth of Julian’s breath and the shadows under his eyes and the smoothness of his chest under Garak’s fingers all tingling down the body Garak was sure Julian did not want. Had been sure, until last night, until last week, until this whole complication of Julian’s touch starvation that seemed to be breaking him in a way that Garak, who touched no one at all, simply did not understand.

It was too early to be puzzling out the mess they had become.

Yet here he was, at Julian’s door, having made sure before he left that Julian Bashir was, indeed, in his quarters. It was too early.

He rang the chime.

A pause went by and Garak thought nothing of it, surprised himself by ringing a second time in case Julian had managed to go back to sleep. Another pause and Garak began to realize that even if it was too early, there might be someone passing who would see him outside the doctor’s quarters. To leave, or break in?

It wasn’t as though either of them was very good at social niceties, he reflected as he keyed in an override code and entered Julian’s apartment. It looked the same as it had last night, but then it hadn’t been more than a handful of hours since he had left. Steeling himself, Garak glided through the silver light spilling in from the viewports and approached the bedroom. His eyes adjusted to the dark easily and he saw the lanky form of Julian sprawled across the bed. _Good_ , Garak thought to himself. Julian had been able to sleep; the experiment had worked, this would not be repeated, they could close the whole thing down and everything would be fine.

Except—Garak looked closer, watching the expansion of Julian’s ribcage. It wasn’t right; the breathing was erratic, shuddering. Garak chanced taking a step closer to examine. Julian lay on his stomach, his limbs splayed over the small bed, feet hanging off the edge. He was covered in a thin sheen of sweat that made him look almost glittery in the low light. 

Abandoning pretense, Garak reached forward and wrapped a hand around Julian’s wrist—the pulse underneath stuttered, haltingly, and Garak knelt at the bedside with a sick fear. “Dr. Bashir?” he said, breaking his own silence, wanting Julian to wake and be angry with him. Nothing happened. “Julian?” he tried again.

Julian’s body started to convulse, slightly, a rhythmic tremor running through him. What had he done? What could Garak do now? He had no training; he should call the infirmary, but Julian would not thank him for intervening, for exposing him to his colleagues like that.

The pulse against Garak’s palm sped up suddenly, a racing _thumpthumpthumpthump_ and Julian’s breathing became pants, his face falling strangely slack as Garak rolled him over to put a hand on his chest, feeling the sweat sick-slick and _wrong_ , unlike the sweat of the nightmare, clammy and strange. The heart pounded beneath Garak's palm too fast, too fast, and he would bear Julian’s anger later as he reached for the combadge on the bedside table and activated it. “Garak to infirmary,” he barked at it, hoping there was no clearance he would need to make it work.

“Where is Dr. Bashir?” came a voice, stern and official.

“He’s currently convulsing,” Garak said with impatience. “Emergency medical beam-out from his quarters; I don’t know what he took but he needs immediate medical attention.”

“How did you—”

“ _Now_ ,” Garak hissed, “before he dies because of your need for regulations.”

There was a brief pause while Garak cursed the Federation and the Dominion alike before the voice returned. “Medical beam-out approved. Put his combadge on him, please.”

Garak hooked the insignia to Julian’s waistband and stepped away as the quivering body of the doctor shimmered in front of him into nothingness.

***

Julian woke, groggy and sore. His head felt immensely heavy and his chest ached as though Morn had sat on him. Had the Jem’Hadar beaten him again?

“Doctor,” said a deep voice above him, “I’m glad to have you back with us.”

That was Captain Sisko’s voice. Captain Sisko had not been in the camp.

“That was quite a scare, I hear.”

A scare.

 _Oh, no_. Waking in Garak’s arms, his chest bleeding; cleaning Garak’s embattled hand; kissing Garak and watching him walk away again; taking the hypospray of too much; he remembered, now, and for the briefest of moments wished he had been right about it being Jem’Hadar instead.

“How…long?” he asked through a throat that felt like he’d swallowed broken glass as he opened his eyes to see Captain Sisko’s closed-off face.

“Only a few hours. You were beamed in about five hours ago, actually.”

There was a hardness in Sisko’s voice that warned Julian but he wasn’t there yet. “Beamed?”

Sisko paused before answering. “Apparently Mr. Garak alerted the infirmary that you were unwell and needed immediate medical attention. It was a good thing; I’m told you narrowly escaped full cardiac arrest.”

 _Garak_? Garak had come back? Garak had…found him?

Garak had allowed the infirmary to know that he was in Julian’s quarters? Julian closed his eyes again, overwhelmed by how much his nurses were going to read into that. How little there was to read, in actuality.

“Dr. Bashir, you had assured me that you were going to rest.”

Julian didn’t bother to inform him that he had, in fact, rested, before alienating his friend and overdosing on sleep aids.

“I have not asked what caused the near-arrest, but you are a young man. If it is the strain of your recent experiences, I will extend your leave properly.”

A sigh of relief rolled through Julian; his nurses hadn’t broken confidentiality. There was no way they could have missed the amount of drugs in his system, but at least they hadn’t told Sisko of what must look like a suicide attempt.

“Doctor?”

Julian shook his head and regretted the motion. He carefully raised a hand from underneath the bioscanner to press against his temple. “Medical mistake,” he croaked, which was plausibly true. _Even the lies_ , he heard in the back of his mind. “Won’t…happen again.”

Sisko pursed his lips as he looked down at Julian. “Do you need more time?”

Of all the things Julian knew he needed, time was rather far down on the list. “Will be…fine,” he said. “Just…need rest.”

He could tell this didn’t fully satisfy Sisko but was true enough that the captain let it be. “I’ll make sure the nurses remember not to disturb you,” he said, and somewhere in Julian’s mind he laughed that Sisko thought he could tell the nurses their job better than they already knew it, especially when caring for their own CMO. Still, the impetus was sweet, and Julian appreciated that Sisko did not often extend sweetness. 

“Thank…thank you, Captain,” he said, and his eyes closed before he could stop them, the infirmary dissolving into blackness in front of him.

***

When he woke again, it was to a great deal of noise. Julian dragged himself back to full wakefulness, his mind feeling heavy and slow and strange, wildly unlike the unstoppable rocket it usually was. He tried not to think about whether he had finally managed to damage himself seriously, whether anyone would notice, whether he might show up now as normal, as—

He focused on the ruckus across the infirmary. “I will not let such an insult lie as to be struck by that _petaQ_!” yelled a deep voice.

Worf. Julian sighed; he was glad it wasn’t him having to field the angry Klingon, but he did wonder who had been stupid enough to hit him—and strong enough, apparently, to injure him.

“Doctor?” he heard, and his heart stopped for a moment. Martok’s scarred face leaned into his view. “What are you doing on the table here?”

“Medical mistake,” Julian said, hoping the same lie would work again. _Never tell the same lie twice_ , a sly voice reminded him in the back of his mind and he shoved it to the side.

“Yours?”

“Interaction of hyposprays,” he said, sidestepping the question. “What happened to Worf?” He was glad his voiced sounded like his own again, though still dry and low.

Martok split into a wide grin, the smile stretching the mass of scar tissue over his missing eye. “A Pakled freight captain showcased the marvelous intelligence of his species by picking a fight over something at Quark’s. Worf, of course, could not leave the challenge alone—he is a good Klingon, Worf—but he didn’t see the lieutenant that got in a right cross. It is a glorious broken nose, and a fine mess of the two Pakleds that now reflect on their dishonor in Odo’s cells. I only wish I hadn’t been on the upper level and unable to warn Worf of the second opponent.”

“Are they…being treated?” Julian cursed the break in his voice, the weakness of it.

“Ever the doctor,” Martok said, good-naturedly. “I would believe so, but I was more focused on Quark’s insistence that Worf not bleed all over his counter. So here we are!” he almost cheered as Worf growled in the background. “It should be only a moment. I do hope your mistake was not serious?” His ridges furrowed in concern and Julian almost smiled at the strange affection of it, this Klingon who had befriended him in impossible circumstances.

 _And then you let him down a thousand times, are still letting him down_ , whispered the rasping shivers in his mind. Julian ignored them. “I’ll be fine,” he said, mustering a grin that felt strange on his angular face.

“I’m glad to hear it!” said Martok, slapping the scanner over Julian’s bed in delight. Another growl from Worf pulled Martok’s attention and he glanced over his shoulder. “I should probably go make sure he isn’t injuring your nurses,” Martok said and Julian smiled again, feeling as though it was as hollow as he. “Glory to your healing!” Martok declared and left.

Julian stared at the ceiling while half-listening to the uproar of the unruly Klingons attempting to find honor in a foolish bar fight. He couldn’t stay here; it was beyond ridiculous for the CMO to be in his own infirmary for something as stupid as an accidental overdose. It was a first-year med student’s mistake. It was a normal person’s mistake.

 _It wasn’t an accident_. 

Julian ignored the thought and pushed the call button on his bioscanner. A frustrated Bajoran nurse came over. “Dr. Bashir, are you alright?” he asked.

“I’m fine. I would like you to release the scanner so I can discharge myself.”

The nurse looked over his vitals and frowned. “Dr. Bashir—were it another patient, you would advise against them leaving the infirmary.”

“Quite likely I would, but they wouldn’t know how to care for themselves in their own quarters.”

The response that he hadn’t, either, was plainly written on the nurse’s face, but he had the grace not to say it. “Still, sir, I—I don’t think—”

Julian sighed. “Hodu, I appreciate your care for me and take full responsibility for overriding you, but I _am_ overriding you. Besides,” he looked pointedly behind Hodu at the Klingons, “it seems like you need as few other distractions at the moment as you can get.”

Hodu rolled his eyes good-naturedly but stood his ground. “Sir, it is your prerogative to release yourself under your own authority, but I would prefer it if there were someone at your quarters to monitor you. And,” he shifted nervously, “I think Nurse Jabara would back me up on that.”

Knowing he was beaten, Julian processed. It made him as proud as it annoyed him that his staff knew their work and were willing to stand up to him for his own health. But who could he ask to be his babysitter? The idea of Miles was absurd, and Dax’s mothering concern alarmed him—besides, she would soon have her hands full of Worf.

This train of thought felt too familiar. The irony was too much.

“If you let me call Garak, he can see me home.”

Hodu didn’t quite stop his eyebrows from climbing up his forehead before he caught himself. “I—yes, sir, I will open a comm link for you.” He leaned over and tapped several buttons before straightening. “Line is open, sir. I’ll, just, um, I’ll go check if the others need help.” He walked away, clearly curious but realizing that Julian was aware of it.

Julian was quite sure this week couldn’t get any worse, but now was a great time to test the hypothesis. “Bashir to Garak,” he said.

There was a slight pause. “Garak here,” came a wary voice. Julian found himself wondering where Garak was, what he had interrupted, whether Garak had come to check on him while he was unconscious. He stuffed the spark of something like hope down deep, smothering it in his distaste for remaining on this biobed.

“Garak, would you be willing to walk me to my quarters? I’d like to leave the infirmary, but my nurses quite rightly won’t let me simply walk out without some reassurance that I’ll be looked after.” He lowered his voice to prevent Hodu overhearing. “You can leave once you’ve seen me home, if you want. They just want to make sure I don’t collapse on the way.”

“Is that a valid concern?”

Julian both hated and loved that he could almost see Garak’s head tilt in the dry curiosity of the disembodied voice. He pondered lying, felt too tired. “Only moderately,” he said.

There was another pause and Julian bit his tongue to keep from filling it. “Would you like this to happen now?” Garak finally said.

Trying not to let his relief and his fear into his voice, Julian answered, “If convenient. If you’re busy, it can wait.” _Please don’t be busy_ , he thought.

“I will be over shortly,” Garak said. “Is there anything you need me to bring?”

“No, thank you,” said Julian, wondering what he could have asked for. It was only a short walk home, after all. “See you soon. Bashir out.” He tapped the call light again.

“Were you able to reach him?” Hodu asked as if he hadn't heard Garak's response, and a thousand unasked questions lurked in the sentence.

“I was, and he’s on his way. So if you would prepare the paperwork so I can sign that I did want this and you did warn me and I absolve you of anything untoward that befalls me once I leave with my chaperone, I’d appreciate it.”

Hodu opened his mouth as though to add something but left it, turning away to retrieve the padd for release papers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't tend to write Klingons because they're a bit flat to me, but I love Martok to pieces and will always work him in when I can. Also, Hodu Fais is my own creation because there have to be multiple nurses around and I like the idea of a Bajoran guy being one of them.


	8. Chapter 8

Garak turned off the comm and stared out the door of his shop. He couldn’t see the infirmary—for one thing, the florist and the shipping brokerage were in the way—but he knew that Julian lay just across the Promenade. His mind had been there all day, alert to any unusual alarms or people running toward the infirmary, any indication that something further had happened to the beautiful and broken officer. The sight of him convulsing on the bed as his heart rate scurried under Garak’s fingertips still brought Garak’s own heart to his throat. What if he hadn’t gone back this morning? What if he hadn’t overridden the codes?

It was intolerable, the thought of losing Julian Bashir.

And now Julian Bashir was asking for him. 

Everyone else was probably busy. He was getting tired of being Julian’s escape hatch, really. But he knew he would answer yes every time, could not stop himself, and the pathetic reality of it soured in his mind. 

He cleaned up his worktable, reminding himself that this didn’t need to be immediate, that Julian had said it was on his schedule. It was not lost on him that Julian was leaving before his staff thought wise, so adding a bit more time might not be the worst thing he could do. But Garak could well understand Julian’s desire to get out of the infirmary, to hide away from the questions and the concern.

Satisfied with the tidiness of the shop, Garak double-checked that he had no clients in the afternoon to reschedule. It was habit more than anything, as clients were few and far between with the war on the wormhole’s doorstep. Fashion was one of the many casualties of the constant tension. A shame, really.

Garak closed the shop behind him, signaling that it would remain so for the rest of the day, thinking about Julian’s words that he could leave after walking him home and knowing that he would do no such thing. 

***

Julian was glad he kept a spare uniform in his office, as he’d been beamed to the infirmary in his pajamas and did not relish the idea of walking through the station in those. As he pulled down the sleeves and adjusted the shoulders of this uniform style that still felt too new, he wondered how on earth this was going to work with Garak. He was wildly curious as to how and why Garak had been the one to find him; he was mortified that there had been something to find. He didn’t know how to explain to Garak, if he even asked, that Julian himself wasn’t sure if the incorrect dosage had been a mistake driven by exhaustion or a follow-up on the desire he had voiced to Garak before fainting in his arms.

“Ready, Doctor?” came the smooth voice at the door of his office. 

Julian took a deep breath, centering himself, before turning. “Thank you, Garak, for coming and vouching for me.”

“I appreciate wishing to convalesce in one’s own surroundings,” Garak responded, and Julian thought of sitting in a chair for hours on end while Garak fought for his life against the poison in his brain. How long ago it seemed, now.

How much they had both changed.

“Shall we?” Garak asked, stepping back slightly to allow Julian room to lead the way.

“Of course,” Julian said. He left his office, meeting Hodu on the way out. “I know I’m still on leave for two days,” Julian said to Hodu as he signed the last document on the release forms, “so I promise not to wind up on your tables again. I’ll stay out of the infirmary entirely.” He wondered if his jocular tone sounded as forced as it felt.

“Don’t stay away if you need us, Doctor,” Hodu responded earnestly. “It’s better for you to be healthy, which you know.”

“Which I know,” Julian replied. “Thank you, Nurse Hodu. And good luck with any other surprises that come through today.” He smiled, tilting his head toward where Worf had been brought in; he had left some time ago, taking Martok with him to listen to his mutterings about what he ought to do to the Pakleds if he found them again.

Garak followed him like a shadow as he left the infirmary and headed toward the turbolift, and Julian did not turn to acknowledge him. It felt wrong, and rude, and terrible, but Hodu had been right—discharging himself from the infirmary had been yet another medically unsound decision on his part and keeping himself upright enough to walk to the lift was taking rather a lot of concentration. Simply getting dressed had worn him out and he now wanted to sleep for a week, or two, or until the end of the war.

That sounded good, but also dangerous. He couldn’t skip out on this. He couldn’t do that to his friends, for one thing.

Not that they’d miss him. Or perhaps they might, if there wasn’t anything better to replace him.

Julian shook his head to jar that thought loose and miscalculated his own dizziness, stumbling slightly as his equilibrium slid out of balance briefly. He felt Garak’s hands wrap around his forearm, guiding him by the elbow the remaining steps to the lift, and the steady pressure of those hands felt delicious, grounding, safe. But it wasn’t, was it? It was only a temporary thing, a silence burdened by the number of things they steadfastly weren’t saying. What about Julian’s overdose? What about the nightmare last night?

What about the kiss?

“Habitat level,” Garak told the lift as he released Julian, keeping to himself on the other side. Absurdly, Julian remembered one of the first lift rides they had shared, the awkwardness similarly strong but of such a different flavor, bubbly and anxious with the promise of mystery and uncertainty flowing between them. The space now felt weary, weighted with all that they had seen together, had not named. Julian wished he knew how to say anything at all.

Julian stepped out first when the lift stopped, both an acknowledgement that they were going to his quarters and an old habit of knowing that Garak would never leave a room first, exposing his back. The ingrained awareness ached within Julian, oddly; he knew Garak better, he thought, than anyone on the station, and yet he didn’t know him at all.

And he had now given Garak more than enough reason to never let him any closer.

“Thank you for walking me home,” Julian said as they reached his door, feeling weirdly as though this were a first date, as though he wanted to kiss Garak again—but then, that had gone so well the first time.

“As I understood it, I am to do more than escort you.”

Absurdly, Julian thought for a moment that it was an entendre, an invitation—but no, he reminded himself, that possibility was definitely out of the question now. “You don’t have to. I can look after myself.”

Garak tilted his head and pierced him with those ice blue eyes. “I do not question your medical expertise, Doctor, but I do think it tends not to extend to your own person.”

Julian realized that he was not going to be able to stand much longer and he would be damned before he fainted in the hallway in front of anyone walking by. “Fine,” he said, pushing a resignation he didn’t fully feel into his voice, “come in, then.” He entered his code and walked in, Garak trailing along behind. “I don’t know how exciting this is going to be for you, though; I’m just going to sleep again.”

“An excellent idea, I would think.”

Julian watched Garak scan the room without seeming to do so, watched his body settle into a ready coil that seemed relaxed yet had movement to spare built in, _watched_ the man who had saved him a thousand times over.

“I thought you said you were to be sleeping?” Garak finally said, clearly discomforted by the scrutiny he of course noticed.

“Garak, I—I just…” The words caught in his throat, caught in his heart, withered on his tongue in the face of everything that he had done to the man he never wanted to hurt. It was the height of irony that he apparently couldn’t stop doing so. He gave up, turning to the room—and stumbled, his energy expended by the simple activities of walking and standing.

Garak was at his side as though he’d materialized there, the space in between inconsequential. “When did you last eat, Doctor?”

“They had me on nutrients in the infirmary.”

“A wise decision, but when did you last _eat_?”

Julian looked at him and shrugged.

Without so much as a by-your-leave, Garak hooked one of Julian’s arms over his own neck and stood, pulling Julian up with him and walking him over to the small table to deposit him in a chair. Behind him, Julian heard Garak at the replicator pushing buttons before returning with a bowl and a glass. Julian wrinkled his nose at the smell. “Rokassa juice?” he said.

“Good for breaking a fast,” Garak said.

“Mixed with—Garak, is this chicken noodle soup?”

“Meat and broth; I figured you would prefer it to zabu stew.”

“You figure right, but this is an odd pairing.”

“Too odd?”

It seemed to Julian that they suddenly weren’t talking about food at all. “I hope not,” he said, looking Garak in the eye.

Garak’s face gave away nothing. “Eat,” he said. “Sleep does wonders, but so does actual food.”

“I feel like that’s my line.”

“Strange, isn’t it?”

Julian smiled, the tug of his lips feeling odd on his face. A mothering Garak was a curious development, but he had to admit that he was glad Garak had stayed. Even now, when there were whole galaxies of missteps between them, Garak’s presence was…comforting.

He ate several spoonsful of the soup and was surprised to find that it was good, that the heat sliding down his throat was soothing. Eventually he contemplated the glass of juice. He considered holding his nose, the old way of tricking oneself into not tasting, but figured Garak would be less than pleased by that antic. He took a deep breath, grabbed the glass, and chugged a third of it in one go.

It wasn’t terrible, actually. It was overpowering and it smelled awful, but the taste was rather like licking an entire fruit stand—chaotic, and strangely a bit bitter, but not entirely disagreeable.

“An interesting face after ingesting something, Doctor.”

“What? Oh, I just—this—there’s a lot going on in this juice.”

Garak almost smiled. “Does it pair well with the soup?”

“God, no,” said Julian immediately. “They’re wildly different parts of the tongue. But…” He took another drink, much smaller this time, and considered. “In the right amounts, they kind of balance each other.” He looked up at Garak, imbuing the statement with what he actually wanted to say. “I think human and Cardassian could mix quite well, if done properly.”

Garak held his gaze a moment before looking away, sweeping the small room again. Julian felt the silence like a living thing and made to push away his soup, to fill it, to say anything—

“Do finish eating, Doctor,” Garak said without looking back, and Julian sighed. It was like being denied dessert as a child at the table until dinner was finished. He grumbled his way through the rest of the soup and the juice, vowing never to pair the two again but feeling slightly better with actual food in his stomach. The room had stopped spinning, at least. He made to stand up and take his dishes but Garak was faster, gently pushing him back down, clearing the table and returning with a glass of water.

"This is so much liquid, Garak.”

“Hydration matters, Doctor.”

So did flushing any remainder of the overdose out of his system, and Julian bet his holosuite credits that Garak knew that. Truthfully, the last of it had been purged in the infirmary, but the reset to his body’s digestive circulation wasn’t an altogether bad idea. He drank the water and the pair sat in the quiet for a moment, listening to the station hum contentedly to itself.

“Garak, this—this morning, I—”

Garak held up a hand. “Now, you sleep.”

“Garak, you can’t keep avoiding having conversations with me,” Julian blazed suddenly, burdened by the amount of things Garak kept stopping him from saying.

"But so much of what we do is conversation!" Garak responded in mock affront.

Julian wasn’t swayed. “About _us_ , Garak.”

Garak frowned. “I am not avoiding them,” he said softly, and Julian snorted in disbelief. “Not completely,” he amended. “But you—you are not in a position to have those kinds of discussions.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”

The two glared at each other, both exasperated by the other’s stubbornness. “You are not, Dr. Bashir,” Garak repeated, and for some reason the full use of his name and title stung Julian deeply. “Again, I do not have your medical expertise, but until you can journey without fainting or falling I do not think it wise to embark on fraught topics of discussion.”

The truth rankled. Julian wanted to push back but could feel the edges of his exhaustion crowding in again. He huffed in frustration. “Fine. I’ll sleep. Then we’ll talk.” He stood, slowly and deliberately. “Will you come back when you close the shop for the day?”

“It is closed.”

Julian stared at him. “But…”

“You called me as someone to keep an eye on you in place of your nurses, did you not?”

“I—I did, but—”

“But you figured I would trust you to your own devices and schedules? Doctor, surely you are not that foolish to think me that naïve.”

“No, just…just that busy.”

Garak stood as well, smoothing out his tunic. “Having you transported to the infirmary again is a sufficiently detrimental outcome for any of my other business to supersede this.”

Julian winced. “Garak, I—”

“Later, Doctor.” His tone brooked no argument. “Now, I would imagine you know you cannot take another sleep aid.”

Julian nodded. He had been trying to figure that conundrum out since they had returned.

Garak suddenly looked uncharacteristically nervous. “Would it—was it helpful for…” He trailed off, gesturing to himself.

It took a moment for Julian to pull his metaphorical jaw off the ground. “Are you willing to stay with me again?”

Garak nodded.

“Yes,” Julian said, the relief coursing through him. “Yes, it is helpful. And—well, I’ll try not to scratch the hell out of you this time.”

“The ‘hell’ is still most firmly in me, Doctor,” Garak responded, “do not fear on my account.”

Julian chuckled. “Well then; now that I’m suitably fed, let’s put me to bed.”

After a visit to the refresher and a change out of his uniform, Julian stood again next to Garak at the foot of the bed. “I mean, I guess we can try the couch,” he said, remembering the closeness and hoping Garak would say he preferred this.

“This is where you sleep, Doctor. It is where we will sleep.”

Shrugging, Julian climbed in, waiting for Garak to mold himself around him. In the simple hold of Garak’s embrace, Julian felt his body begin to relax, to melt into the fabric behind him, to rest on the arm snaking under his head. “Thank you, Garak,” he whispered as he drifted off to sleep, his breathing evening out and his mind going offline before the Cardassian risked the lightest of kisses to the side of his neck in response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See, comfort! I can write comfort! (Sorta.) I did promise it.
> 
> My thanks to my Discord peeps who reassured me that it wasn't completely weird that I think rokassa juice would taste like a less-sugary version of V8 Splash.


	9. Chapter 9

Garak woke, Julian’s body warm and strangely heavy in his arms. At some point, Julian had shifted, turning to face Garak and now his long limbs entwined around Garak like a Klingon _glommer_ , his head nestled just beneath Garak’s chin. The curly, rough hair scratched Garak’s jaw ridges.

It was everything he had dreamed of—but not like this. Julian needed the solidity of Garak, the grounding aspect of another living being holding him steady against the shadow of the internment camp; he did not want Garak himself, Garak the dangerous Cardassian with too many secrets and not enough soft invitations.

Even the kiss had been misguided, Garak thought to himself, a side effect of that strange idea of being “touch-starved.” Perhaps it was a human need, to be touched, to be held.

Humans were so full of liabilities, really.

Julian stirred, fidgeting in his sleep, and Garak held him tighter, iron bindings around that too-thin chest. Julian quieted again, relaxing into Garak’s grasp. It was absurd. Such pressure should have awakened him, should have frightened him; everything about this was backwards, wrong. _Why don’t you run from me?_ Garak silently asked the man sleeping in his arms. _Why can’t I run from you?_

As if in answer, Julian stretched and took a deep breath, curling even further into Garak’s embrace. “Hi,” he said to Garak’s shoulder.

“How are you feeling?”

Julian paused a moment, considering. “Better.” He traced one finger down Garak’s arm. “No scratches this time.”

It was all Garak could do not to shiver under the line of Julian’s touch even though he couldn’t feel it through his layers of clothing. The intimacy of all of this was overwhelming. “None,” he confirmed.

Julian sighed, relieved. “Computer, what time is it?” he called.

“The time is 2225.”

“Really?” Julian pulled away from Garak to sit up in surprise and Garak let him go. “That’s—that would be about seven _hours_ of sleep.” He looked down at Garak. “That’s the most I’ve had without a hypospray since, well, since we got back.”

Garak began to sit up but Julian placed a hand on his chest, right over his _chUla_ ; Garak stilled, wondering if Julian was aware of the suggestion of it.

“Garak, we need to talk.”

Garak almost rolled his eyes. “This is scarcely the positioning for it.”

“This is _exactly_ the positioning for it,” Julian countered, “because here, you are at my mercy.” He grinned, pleased with himself.

A shiver run through Garak at the words, at the idea of Julian being unmerciful in all the most wondrous ways. He tamped down the idea firmly. “Hardly,” he said instead, “as there are plenty of ways to escape or reverse our current positions.”

“Do you want to?” Julian’s smile left, replaced by concern. He took his hand away from Garak’s chest. “I meant it, Garak, I don’t ever want to force you into anything. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry about what I said to you in your shop, I can’t believe I used that against you.”

Garak sighed. “What did you take, yesterday?” he asked, dodging the question.

Julian looked away. “More than I should have,” he said softly.

“Why?”

He shrugged, the thin and bony shoulders accentuated by the pajama shirt hanging oddly off his frame. Garak waited; he knew how to let silences grow until the other fell into them.

“I felt like you were the last thing that was tethering me, here,” Julian finally said, looking at Garak’s hip. “My work, my quarters, my friends were all cut off from me by that…that _thing_ , and you—you were in the camp with me, you were…you let me see you. You trusted me.” He closed his eyes. “And then I betrayed that trust over and over, and took advantage of you and then _kissed_ you and you—you didn’t want that, and you’re perfectly right not to, and then you walked out and I just…I didn’t feel like trying, anymore. It wasn’t—I wasn’t set on killing myself, or anything, please don’t think that.” He opened his eyes and looked directly at Garak. “I know what I said the other day, but I—I don’t want to die. I just…didn’t want to keep living, at that moment, or at least be conscious of living. I don’t know.” He curled into himself, balancing on the edge of the narrow bed. “I bet none of that makes any sense and probably sounds pretty childish, anyway.”

Garak pondered what to say. The memory of Julian shaking in his arms in his shop, of Julian’s erratic breathing and too-fast heartbeat, the memory of wondering if Julian would, in fact, die thundered through him. The idea of a world without Julian Bashir shook him hard.

“I’m glad to hear you are not keen to end your life,” Garak said carefully. “And I would not say it sounds ‘childish.” He considered, feeling the warmth of Julian’s body so close to his own, remembering the way Julian’s tension released in his arms. Could he admit this truth, even now? Could he trust Julian, as the man insisted he once had?

“It was not that I did not want that,” he finally said.

Julian’s gaze sharpened as he rested his head on one bony knee. “But—you left.”

“You have not made it easy to believe your overtures stem from honorable intentions of late.”

Julian winced.

“But I understand that the camp, and the rather rude reality of life back here, has not left you with an advisable level of…”

“Tact?”

Garak smiled. “I was thinking ‘restraint,’ but ‘tact’ may also suffice.” He laid a hand on the sliver of bed between them, the sheets underneath already starting to cool in Julian’s absence. “It was not…wise to encourage such things when I knew you were not in your right mind to offer them.” He studied his hand as though fascinated by it, avoiding whatever expression Julian wore. The bluntness of the exchange physically pained him, his Cardassian heart aching for subterfuge, for wit, for something to cover the nakedness of admitting how much he wanted Julian to actually want _him_.

“Garak,” Julian said softly, his hand resting gently on Garak’s, “I have indeed been ill, but I was in my right mind when I said I wanted to do something about this—about _us_. And before you say there isn’t an ‘us,’ let me tell you that I’ve wanted there to be an ‘us’ since—since I broke up with Leeta, at least. Probably before that, if I’m honest. And no, I don’t know how that will work, and I know both of us are a mess, and I know that there are more skeletons in both our closets than either of us know what to do with, but I also know that I slept for more than seven hours because I was with you, and when I needed to have someone touch me or I’d lose my mind the only person who made sense was you, and when I feel like I can’t stand another person forgetting that I wasn’t actually there for a conversation I want to go and talk to you, and when I get overwhelmed by the fear of this war I want to be with you. You—you aren’t safe, Garak, I know that, but you’re safe to _me_ , and I can’t even tell you how much I value that right now.”

Garak was stunned into silence, contemplating the hand on his that suddenly felt like the gravitational center of the universe.

“I mean, I also think you’re brilliant and funny and handsome, if you, um, if you want that kind of information,” fumbled Julian, beginning to pull his hand away. Garak turned his over and caught Julian’s fingers, holding them firmly.

“You think I’m handsome?” said Garak, saucily batting his eyelashes up at Julian.

Julian grinned, the relief and humor clear in his eyes. “Devastatingly,” he said.

“Whatever shall we do about your poor standards, my dear doctor.”

“Meet them,” Julian said, bending down and kissing Garak softly, his weight pressing into the hand still in Garak’s to hold himself up. Garak kissed him back, the pressure of Julian’s lips feeling more real than anything else on the station. The pair shifted, changing the awkward angle to something more comfortable as Garak rolled fully onto his back and Julian leaned over him, kissing him like he needed Garak’s mouth as much as he’d needed sleep. Garak reached up and curled his fingers into that strange human hair, pulling Julian closer, licking his lips in a question. Julian’s mouth opened and Garak tasted him, inhaled his breath that was even warmer than his body as Julian slid fully on top, straddling Garak as his clever fingers sought the clasps in Garak’s tunic.

Garak’s mind came back online and he pushed Julian back, held his hands still. “You are still not well, Doctor.”

“First, it’s Julian. If we’re going to sleep together, in the sexual sense this time, which I would very much like to happen, you cannot call me by my title. It’s not my particular kink at all.” Julian shifted and his hips dragged Garak’s trousers across his scales, momentarily throwing Garak’s attention far from the negotiation into the desire that flared across every ridge. “Second, no, I’m not. I’m a mess, and I can admit that to you and kind of to myself, but I swear to you that this is not a product nor a side effect of that. Garak, I am interested in you in every way and that is separate from the fact that my nightmares have nightmares from the last couple of months.”

“This is not still a treatment for…” Garak searched his mind for the words, “touch starving?"

Julian took a deep breath, flexing his hands in Garak’s grip. “I promise, I am not using you to cure that. It’s a bonus that those are connected, but this isn’t just for your body. Though I’m very interested in using _that_ fully.” The look Julian gave Garak was positively lecherous and Garak had to remind himself that it was his turn to speak so that he didn’t flip them both over and take Julian on the spot.

“Be sure—Julian,” he cautioned, catching on the familiar name.

Bending, Julian kissed him again. “I am,” he whispered against Garak’s lips before rising up further and kissing Garak’s nose, each eyeridge, and the bottom ridge of his _chUfa_. “This is what I want from you, Garak. _You_.”

And Garak believed him, releasing Julian’s wrists and reaching up to cup that angular face, drinking in the taste and the smell and the weight of him as Julian opened his tunic and ran smooth hands over scaled muscles, mapping the ridges with fingers and tongue, both of them running toward each other, putting the broken pieces back into place as they moved together in the quiet of the station’s hum, neither feeling the fear of solitude any longer. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So for anyone who isn't into explicit sex scenes, that's it, folks! In fact, my first draft did end here. Thank you for reading and commenting and engaging with this in whatever way.
> 
> For those of you who are on board with human/lizard sex, the final chapter will be up Wednesday because I felt there was more that needed to be said. It's not PWP but, y'know, it does earn that "anal sex" tag.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huzzah for the sexy times!

Julian trailed down every ridge, outlined every scale he could find. His doctor’s mind catalogued the places he’d seen before from necessary examinations, the ways Garak’s frame echoed parts of Tain’s as the son he was. Julian pushed the comparisons and the medicinal evaluations to the side—they had no place here. Tain, for certain, had no place here as Garak unbuttoned Julian’s shirt and pushed it from his slim shoulders.

They were both freeing themselves from him. From everything they hadn’t left in 371.

“Julian,” Garak asked against his lips, “what do you want?”

Julian pulled back a bit, his hands splayed on either side of Garak’s head. He didn’t answer for a moment as he took in the positively _navy_ tint of Garak’s eyes, the flush of purplish-blue down his neck ridges and pooling in his _chUfa_ and _chUla_.

“Julian?”

“Sorry,” Julian said, dragging his eyes back to Garak’s and away from the larger scales outlining his pectoral muscles. “What?”

Garak arched one eyeridge. “Much as I appreciate the attention, I would like to know what you’re wanting.”

“What?”

“Of this.”

“Oh, you mean top or bottom?”

The eyeridges drew down in confusion. “Well, I am currently already on the bottom. Unless you’d—”

“Oh, no,” said Julian, chuckling as he kissed Garak again. “It’s a sexual comparison—who’s, well, who’s leading, kind of. Although you can lead from, well, being...” He ducked his head, a strange kind of embarrassment rolling over him suddenly.

Garak lifted his chin with one finger, drawing Julian’s eyes back to his. “Then?”

“I’d…” Julian cleared his throat. “Well, I’d, um, like you to…” He felt like a first-year at the academy again, overcome with nervousness that Garak would not be comfortable with him, would feel he was asking too much—but they’d come this far, hadn’t they? They were both shirtless on Julian’s bed; surely that was an indicator that Julian could ask for what he wanted. “I’d like you…in, um, me.”

Garak’s eyes narrowed in what Julian could only call lust and the flush over his ridges deepened still further. “That can be arranged,” he said, his voice suddenly as dark as his scales. Julian had a brief moment of wondering whether Cardassians had ever eaten their partners, evolutionarily, before Garak’s hands slid down the curve of his back and pushed down his trousers, thumbnails leaving light scrapes over his skin. Julian shuddered with the sensation, his hips bucking up to give Garak room to drive the cloth down to Julian’s knees before he kicked them the rest of the way off. 

“Ah, my dear,” Garak positively purred as Julian lay naked on top of him. “I see I shall have to make you more chicken soup.” He dragged his fingertips over Julian’s bony hips and up his ribs that were easily discernible under his browned skin. Julian shivered.

“Sex first,” he said. “Food later.”

“What priorities,” Garak answered, claiming Julian in another kiss as Julian reached between them to undo Garak’s trousers and pull them off. With some negotiation, they landed on the floor to the side of the bed. “Julian,” Garak said as Julian began kissing his way down Garak’s throat, following the lines of scales to the _chUla_ and then the ridge toward the _chUva_.

“Mmm?”

“Julian, I should,” _hiss_ , “should not simply drop my,” _gasp_ , “clothing on your floor.”

Julian blew a short breath across the divot of the _chUva_ and Garak positively _growled_. “I’m pretty sure they’ll be fine for a bit,” Julian said with a grin and Garak grabbed him by the biceps, nearly hauling him back up over Garak’s body, the _scrape_ of scales and ridges sending electrifying jolts through Julian’s softer skin. Garak made to shift and stopped himself, his grip just short of painfully tight on Julian’s arms as he fought his way back to spoken language.

“May we switch positions?” he asked, his eyes searching Julian’s.

“For me to be underneath? Yes, Garak, we can.” Julian kissed Garak deeply, his hand curling around the jaw ridges. “It is very sweet of you to ask first.”

Garak gently flipped them over, navigating the narrowness of the bed. “You carry a great many memories in your body,” he said softly, tracking one grey finger over the too-prominent collarbone. “You asked me to help keep them at bay, not add to what is harming you.”

Julian was speechless at the thoughtfulness—and the honesty—of the explanation. “I’m so sorry, Garak,” he said after a moment in wonder.

“For what?”

“That I ever thought I could make you be cruel to me.”

Garak shifted uncomfortably, acutely aware of their nakedness on so many levels. “How maudlin, my dear,” he responded gruffly.

Julian grinned, the old grin Garak thought had been lost to the war, the grin that lit up Julian’s face like the bursting flower of the wormhole, and Garak fell for that grin all over again. It was still there, that part of Julian that could delight in the universe so much that it transformed him—and it was aimed at _him_ , somehow caused by Garak himself, and the gift of that was even greater than finally being able to hold Julian this close and feel the smoothness of that beautiful brown skin. “Then let’s return to the lustful,” Julian was saying as he opened his legs to let Garak settle in between.

Garak rolled his body in a wave over Julian’s, his _ajan_ rubbing briefly against Julian’s cock, their stomachs brushing as ridges and scales met hair and skin, Julian’s hard sternum pressing into Garak’s concave _chUla_. Julian tightened his legs around Garak’s, holding him closer, his fingers running down the ridge on Garak’s spine. Garak arched into the touch and Julian pulled him back down, dragging his nails up the ridge, carefully avoiding pulling the scales the wrong way. He tilted his head and kissed the line running down Garak’s shoulder.

“Bite, Julian,” Garak said desperately.

“Won’t that hurt?”

“ _Yes_.”

Garak could feel Julian’s smile curve over his scales as Julian opened his mouth and tongued the ridge, settling his teeth teasingly over the cartilage. Garak bucked against him in encouragement and Julian dug his nails into Garak’s back at the same time as he sank his jaws together. Garak jerked from the dual stimulation and felt his _prUt_ begin to slide forward. “Yes, that,” he panted as he kissed the hollow behind Julian’s ear. Julian’s hands slid down over his hips as his heels dragged lines up and down Garak’s calves, each shift of pressure bringing Julian’s cock over and across the ridges of Garak’s _chUva_. The sensation was maddening, strange, and definitely not enough.

“Garak,” Julian said in a bedraggled voice, “I think now would be a good time…”

In answer, Garak reached down and found one of Julian’s hands, guiding it between them to stroke the lips of his _ajan_. Julian pulled back a little to look Garak in the eyes, questioning. Garak thrust his hips down in answer, pushing Julian’s fingers inside. The slender digits brushed the tip of the emerging _prUt_ and Julian smiled in understanding, crooking his fingers down the ridges on the shaft. He kissed Garak again, stealing the breath from him before pulling his hand out suddenly and dragging it up Garak’s pelvis to scratch the oval of ridges around the _chUva_ with slick tips.

Garak everted at the shift in pressure, sliding underneath Julian’s cock and bumping into the cleft behind.

“ _Yessss_ , that that that,” said Julian, breaking the kiss and pushing his hips down. He reached with his other hand to the stand by the bed and fumbled, pulling out a small bottle and handing it to Garak. “I’m not self-lubricating like you,” he explained to Garak’s quizzical look. “I need a bit of preparation or it will hurt me.”

“Show me how,” said Garak, and Julian opened the bottle, pouring an unpleasantly cold liquid into Garak’s palm. Julian guided their hands between them as the liquid heated and he drew up his knees, his body opening beneath Garak. He steered Garak to the entrance just beyond Garak’s _prUt_ , pulling one finger forward to breach the tight muscle. Julian tensed as Garak stroked experimentally. 

“Slow, Garak, slow,” he said, and Garak pushed further, feeling Julian’s body contract around him, wondering how something this tight would ever allow a _prUt_ inside. Julian pulled Garak’s mouth to his again, short breaths puffing over Garak’s tongue as Julian encouraged a second finger into him, then one of his own, expanding and releasing the opening. “Ready,” Julian said after some moments, pulling both his and Garak’s hands away and reaching for Garak’s _prUt_. “Garak, are you?”

Garak hesitated for a breath, a lifetime, before answering, “Elim.” 

Julian’s face broke open in that grin again, knowing the gift of it as he asked, “Elim, are you ready?”

Garak pushed forward, letting Julian set the pace until he bottomed out, his mind almost derailing at the intensity of the sensation that was even more than he had calculated from the pressure around his fingers. “Ready,” he said, his voice strained, and Julian laughed, the ripple of it bouncing against Garak’s _chUla_ and _chUva_ , contracting even further around his _prUt_. Garak moaned softly at the sensation and Julian wrapped his long arms and legs around Garak, pulling him impossibly close until Julian’s whole world was Garak, Garak who began to move, to undulate within him, every inch of Julian touching the scales of Garak, the bed that smelled of Garak, the force rising as Garak’s speed increased. Julian tilted his hips on an upward cant and the angle shifted just right, Garak’s subtle hip movements continually stroking his _prUt_ over Julian’s prostate and Julian bucked up against him, his cock dragging over the ridges between them as he bit Garak’s other shoulder ridge, as he felt Garak’s hands thread through his hair and pull back for Garak to nip at the hollow of Julian’s throat, as they pushed themselves ever closer, closer, until Julian fell over the edge with a cry of “Elim!” and convulsed around Garak, who followed soon after in a silent exhale across Julian’s neck.

Garak shifted out of Julian, the sudden emptiness leaving Julian feeling loose and strange. He held Garak tightly, his limbs shaking with the overexertion and the residue of exhaustion, until Garak reached one hand behind him to unlock Julian’s fingers. “Julian,” he said quietly, kissing the pulse point in Julian’s wrist, “I will go get something with which to clean us.”

“Don’t leave,” Julian mumbled into Garak’s jaw.

Garak kissed him gently on the temple and pulled back, breaking Julian’s embrace. “Not for quite some time,” he said, and Julian knew that it was enough, that almost-promise. He let himself feel the absence as Garak left the bed knowing that for now, it would not last, the echoes of stone covered by scraping scales that left the right kinds of marks, Garak’s voice reassuring him he belonged here on the bed they had unmade together. He was here, fully here, and it was enough in this breath.

Perhaps he would go play darts with O’Brien soon, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to all who kudos-d and commented along the way, and to any who stumble across this in future! That last line is a nod to the fact that "Dr. Bashir, I Presume" finds Julian in Quark's with O'Brien, where they first see Zimmerman and everything falls apart, well, again.
> 
> Mad gratitude, as ever, to tinsnip's Cardassian anatomy. Also, I think it's important in pretty much every encounter between these two (especially after what Julian's been through here) to pepper in explicit consent check-ins, so hopefully that came across.


End file.
